Damned businessmen
15 August 2007, 4:30 pm. View comments. Filed under Internet, Rants.
Dammit. I busted my monthly Internet bandwidth. Again.
Some of you in the nice Northern Hemisphere may be thinking "WTF Internet bandwidth" but yeah, that's right. Telecom Xtra is the monopoly over our broadband Internet here and we get crap service at high prices. The plan we're with gives 6 GB Internet bandwidth at the damned rate of $49.95 NZD ($36.00 USD) a month, not to mention we have one of the slowest broadband speeds in the OECD already.
Neither my sister nor I know what we did to suddenly bust the 6 GB bandwidth just four days before the recurring date but right now I'm having to suffer 56K dial-up speed. I can't even load my site properly in Mozilla Firefox. Actually, let me rephrase that: I can't load any page properly in Firefox so I'm back to Opera again. It's killing me.
I had always been complaining about the crap broadband speed we got—about 150~200 KB/s downloading from most sites—but now I understand what real pain-in-the-arse means. Last night, I was downloading a file at 4 KB/s. The second file I downloaded was progressing at 0.5 KB/s. All this is due to the bloody rich firm that provides the bad service. They have no competition to face in the industry so it doesn't matter what price they set or what service they give, we all have to pay them. Die.
And to add to all the slow Internet killing my mood, I accidentally bidded on a 1 GB MP4 player on TradeMe when I thought it was a 2 GB. It wasn't purely my fault since that auction came up in the search results when I entered "2GB MP4 player". Anyhow, I won that at $57 NZD and realised I made a mistake fighting over it with another bidder. I then went after the 2 GB one I really wanted and won it at $59 NZD. Yeah. $2 for 1 GB upgrade. I should laugh? Heee. But, no.
It was the same seller that listed the items and I mailed him straight afterwards asking if we could please cancel the trade and I would be willing to pay any costs he had incurred in listing the auction, which would amount to something no more than $3.95. And he replied me:
Please pay $10 (admin and restocking charge) to our bank account
"Admin and restocking charge" my ass. It was just a Chinese guy bringing cheap MP4 players in from China and reselling here for triple or quadruple the price and he's charging a sixth of the item's price for some admin and "restocking" crap. The item hasn't even been dispatched! I shall now give the 1 GB MP4 player to my friend who doesn't have one since if I do resell the item, I don't think I'd find another stupid girl who'd bid up to $57 for it thinking it was a 2 GB.
So now, I am broke again. But at least I'll now treasure my 200 KB/s download speed to come in two days. (Perhaps only for a week in, though.)
25 Comments »
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We used to have bandwidth limitation a year, a year and a half ago... but these days everyone looks at me oddly if I ask about bandwidth (for the net).
That seriously sucks though. The idea I guess, is that since our download speed is limited (mine is about 100kBps), we can't exceed the bandwidth they set up...
One question: why OUR? I really don't get this tendency of referring to oneself in plural. -
I used to be seriously really happy with a 32 kb/s when I was still on dial-up.
To be honest, I've never heard of selling Internet bandwidth before, though. The link to Telecom Xtra redirects me to Yahoo! NZ, by the way. O_o -
@Eina: Yeah, same website.
You'll see there's actually broadband things on it instead of the original Yahoo! search engine place. -
You should really swap to ihug - always been with them and have never had any issues. Telecom/xtra really sucksss. I just love sadistically listening to all my friends' horror stories about 'em ;).
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A lot of companies over here cap bandwidth too.
We (Karl and I) managed to get our Internet before the capping was re-introduced on our plan, but even so.. we don't use more than 2-3GB a month so what the hell are you downloading?
You could always start browsing with everything turned off (images, multimedia etc) ..that'd help ;) -
Gah, I'd hate to have a bandwidth limit. I don't even have a clue how much I use now. Must have been really annoying for you to have to survive on such a slow speed - I get annoyed when mine's a bit slower because I'm downloading something big, let alone having no broadband at all.
Hope your friend appreciates the mp4 player - pretty harsh of the seller to not accept you'd just made a mistake. -
lol, i hat 54k modem so I understand your frustration (or do i hrm), and downloading your average 5mb music file takes over 15 minutes, even if your not loading anything else.
I've never bid anything off the net - am sucker - but I don't really trust extra cheap hardware. Always ask to meet up with the dealer in person to check the thing, I guess it's safest. -
That just sucks, Rilla. I am so sorry. At first I thought you were talking about site bandwidth & I was going to give you some of mine but then I realized you ere talking about internet. I can't give you any of mine of that part. If I could I would. I hope you realize that.
That seller is a rip off artist. But I hope your friend likes her mp4 player.
I hope the rest of your day is better. -
@Amanda: All the other broadband providers in NZ including ihug buy their broadband services from Telecom and resell it. So really, Telecom is the boss.
@Jem: 2-3 GB? How do you ever survive on that?
@Hydora: Just 'cause I've been able to find a whole heap of good and cheap stuff from online auction sites I decided there's nothing wrong with them. I had received a few bad things though, but I just resold them at a higher price. -
Bandwidth trouble is the worst. Plus ridiculous prices. Not everyone is made of money x.x
Thank you for putting up with my site though. Please let me know if I am taking up too much space or am using up too much bandwidth. -
Eeee that's horrible!
I don't think any companies in the US do that, and I'm much more thankful of my pretty shitty SBC now... -
I was capped at 4gigs a month (both upload and download inclusive) for years because they didn't yet offer high speed in my area. So I would go over my limit, don't know it, and pay an extra $20 bucks a month for bandwidth which amounted to more than the high speed plan that doesn't have a limit on bandwidth. But since a year ago, I was able to upgrade and I'm downloading for all those years that I missed. *kicks ISP*
Sorry to hear about the money woes. Being a student has its drawbacks. -
I'm not exactly sure what my bandwidth limit is, but like Belinda pointed out, I don't think companies in the US have bandwidth limits. I'm sorry that you're exceeding your limits though, that must be horrible. I don't know how I'd survive without the internet...
It sucks that you placed a bid on the wrong item though. That's happened to my brother a few times on eBay, so I can relate. He once placed a bid on a game that he wanted — it ended up being the game he wanted, but in Chinese. It's nice that you're giving the spare MP4 player to your friend though. I'm too cheap to give away my iPod mini, but I doubt anyone would want it since the battery only lasts an hour now.
@ your comment - The friend probably wouldn't feel offended if you explained why you were going with a different person. I'm sure they would understand the reasons, no one wants to be lonely, unless the original friend doesn't have any other friends... Then you could always find someone else to be their partner. -
Hey! Don't complain! I can't even GET broadband out here where I live. I'd gladly put up with busted limits and 56k dial-up speeds as opposed to the constant 28.8k speeds I have to deal with!
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Switch to Orcon or Xnet. Best two Internet providers in NZ, apparently.
Others = horrible.
I was with ihug for a year... worst mistake ever. I reckon they've really gone downhill since Vodafone bought them. -
$10 for restocking? WTF? How retarded! I'd probably have had a bitch fit over it, but I'm just plain disagreeable, lol.
We haven't had bandwidth limits on the net here in about 10 years, since Mediacom bought out the wireless and introduced 'unlimited surfing' aorund 1998, but to this day we're paying about $60/mo for net service that's slow as hell - but it's better than nothing, I guess? -
OMG that is really a rip-off artist. My internet connection is considered slow compared to the other countries but then it's fast enough for me. Our prices are higher here,maybe around $98 per month. If my dad didn't offer to provide us that, we'd be crying because we're so going to be broke.
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re: yesssh, telecom does ultimately own all the stupid lines and all, but for some odd reason, all the broadband customers as far as I know are still better off with ihug.
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wow thats a lot of payments
don't worry i'm broke with you lol
take care xox -
Like Chien Yee said, ours here is slower but here there's also no competition so the rates are high and services crap. After reading on your bidding experience, I'm freaked out really. That's scary - I don't think I'll be bidding on anything (not that I can right now, but even if I could..). Oh well, it's still nice of you to give the 1GB away.
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Bandwidth for internet? And $35! Wow that doesn't seem fair.
Haha I'm broke too. -
Wow your internet trouble is pretty harsh- like most other North Americans, I didn't even know you could limit bandwidth per month. Ah, well, I remember the days when I had dial-up...up until 3 years ago, actually. Back then I thought 15 minutes for an mp3 file was fast. Ha.
I'm also too paranoid to bid online, but I wish I could- there's some really good deals. But I think I would fail at bidding efficiently- probably overbid and lose money. -
Haha, I love reading your entries, they always make me laugh (: I'm sorry that Chinese guy ate your money, but hey, at least you've got a new mp3 player. My iPod battery lasts literally thirty minutes
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Test again.
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It's nice of you to give the 1GB mp4 player to your friend, I'm sure she would be grateful to you. It sucks though, about the bidding mistake. Oh well, I think you still made the better choice in keeping it and giving it to your friend as opposed to paying him that ridiculous non existant "admin and restocking fee".
And about the bandwidth ... as a resident of North America, I have nothing to say that would make you feel better, so I will keep my mouth shut.